MollyMcQueeneyCO#1

May 4th, 2020 11:00 - 11:50

Today I observed Dr. Rios's Reading class. The primary focus of the class was timed reading, which aims on improving accuracy and speed of the students' reading. Dr. Rios began the class with a reading from a chapter of an inspirational book to help to get the class in a positive mindset ready for learning. He then discussed what upcoming classes would look like, as large presentations are to begin on Wednesday. For classroom management, Dr. Rios spoke for the majority of the class, but asked plenty of questions and encouraged student involvement. For the timed reading, Dr. Rios provided answers to reading comprehension questions from an article, and the class was asked to find the evidence from the passage to support the answer. The only materials required for this activity were the reading passage and the accompanying questions. There was a high level of student participation because the students were encouraged to speak and it was clear that it was okay for them to make mistakes or to not know an answer. Feedback provided to the students was always positive. Dr. Rios created a great classroom environment where he made some jokes, focused on student comfort, and addressed all of the students' questions and concerns. I learned the importance of creating a comfortable environment for the students in their success. Dr. Rios went into detail about the types of questions included on reading comprehension assignments, stating that having multiple choice questions can make students feel more comfortable and confident and therefore more likely to succeed. I also learned the importance of starting slow in the classroom environment. For the timed reading, Dr. Rios began by working backwards on each question first to make sure the students understood the expectations for the assignment. By the end of the week, the students will be completing timed readings independently, but taking the time to slowly go through the assignment as a class will help them to be fully prepared.